Award Data

Sensors based on chip-scale atomic devices (CSADs) offer portability, manufacturability, and high performance for precision navigation and timing (PNT) missions. Key systems for PNT including atom interferometric gyroscopes (AIG) and atomic clocks. Ongoing advances and innovations in photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are directly relevant to CSADs. Different material bases have been used in PICs ...

Assess the feasibility of a novel technology which automatically generates human-understandable explanations of an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm’s decisions – for example, a deep neural network’s (DNN’s) classification decisions. Our technology, called EMERALD (Explainable Machine Reasoning through the Application of Linked Data), is designed to improve trust a ...

Quantum computer technology is so critical and strategic that the Air Force Research Laboratory is itself working on a quantum bit focused on the trapped ytterbium (Yb+) ion. The current technology based on entangling electrons, photons, or ions are challenging to put together in multiple qubits. To make a qubit stable, it is essential to protect it from outside interferences that can disrupt the ...

The proliferation and capabilities of hobbyist off-the-shelf drone systems poses a direct and immediate threat to U.S. national security. This proposal is a cUAS system to track unwanted UAS in the vicinity using stealthy radars that are AJ. The project will start with an understanding of customer needs and how we can adapt our proposal to best meet the needs of the Air Force.

Exosonic is developing a quiet Mach 1.8, 4500 nmi range supersonic civil aircraft that uses aerodynamic shaping techniques to mute its sonic boom. Exosonic is teamed up with Stanford University Prof. Juan Alonso's Aerospace Design Lab to apply the lab's low boom shape optimization tools to design this aircraft to meet future low-boom regulatory standards. The aircraft's primary customers are comme ...

hazardous chemicals such as JP8, chromium, and byproducts of led-free frangible ammunition and to hazardous environments. Of the many dangers Airmen face, the hypoxia-like unexplained physiological events pilots face are some of the most dangerous and elusive. Current wearable sensors cannot decouple complex, interdependent in vivo response. We propose to develop (design, fabricate, test, and demo ...

The DoD lacks an multi-level security (MLS) cyber information management (CIM) system capable of collecting, sharing and disseminating cyber information containing threats, system vulnerabilities and mission impacts and risks for systems operating at multiple security levels. A system that can securely collect and persist this information from various systems operating at various security levels i ...

Large ground-based telescopes require adaptive optics (AO) to correct for distortions introduced by atmospheric turbulence. In order to function, the AO system must track a bright point source. Although a natural star may be used, full sky coverage requires an artificial beacon created with a laser. The most common type of laser guide star (LGS) employs the mesospheric layer of sodium atoms at an ...

The proposed effort aims to deliver a novel process model for carbon-carbon manufacturing to determine thermo-mechanical properties of these materials and their components, thereby enabling a faster cycle for material development for hypersonic platforms. The proposed solution consists of (1) requirement and functionality analyses, (2) a six-level model representing the key steps of the manufactur ...

In Phase I, ISSI will design and demonstrate a laser absorption-based sensor for time-resolved measurements of combustion fuel/product concentrations (H2O, CO, CO2 and fuel) and gas temperature within the detonation channels and nozzle exit-plane of a rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE). The goal of this STTR is to develop a single sided sensor that plugs into the outer wall of the RDRE simil ...